Alexander Acosta Biography

Alexander Acosta (Rene Alexander Acosta) is an American attorney, academic, and politician who is the 27th and current United States Secretary of Labor.

As of January 2019, Alexander was the first and only Hispanic person to serve in Trump’s cabinet.

Alexander was appointed by President George W. Bush to the National Labor Relations Board and later served as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights and federal prosecutor for the Southern District of Florida.

Alexander Acosta Age

Alexander is 50 years old as of 2019. He was born on January 16, 1969.

Alexander Acosta Family

As of Alexander’s family, nothing much is known except that his parents are Cuban immigrants.

Alexander Acosta Wife

Alexander is married to Jan Acosta. The couple has two children.

Alexander Acosta Net Worth

Alexander has an estimated net worth of around $400,000.

Alexander Acosta Jeffrey Epstein

While serving as the U.S. attorney for Southern Florida in 2007, Alexander approved a controversial plea agreement with billionaire serial child molester Jeffrey Epstein.

In late 2018, Alexander’s name was being circulated as a possible successor to Trump Administration Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Epstein case became a focus of Congressional concern.

Later after, Miami Herald published a detailed report critical of Alexander’s work on the case in which Jeffrey Epstein, was said to have recruited minor girls from Palm Beach County middle schools and high schools for paid sexual activities at his Florida mansion.

Alexander had approved a federal non-prosecution agreement under which Epstein, along with four co-conspirators and any unnamed “potential co-conspirators”, were granted immunity from all federal criminal charges. In order to avoid prosecution, Jeffrey Epstein agreed to plead guilty to two state prostitution charges, register as a sex offender, and pay restitution to three dozen victims identified by the FBI.

He was thereafter sentenced by the state court to 18 months’ incarceration, and he served 13 months, followed by a year of probation.

Jeffrey served his sentence in a private wing of the Palm Beach County jail, with work release to his office allowed for up to 12 hours a day six days a week.

While on probation, Jeffrey Epstein was allowed numerous trips on his corporate jet to his homes in Manhattan and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Later in 2011, in a public letter regarding the case, Alexander himself seemed to express dissatisfaction with the terms of Epstein’s incarceration, stating: “Epstein appears to have received highly unusual treatment while in jail. Although the terms of confinement in a state prison are a matter appropriately left to the State of Florida, and not federal authorities, without doubt, the treatment that he received while in state custody undermined the purpose of a jail sentence.”

The immunity agreement and Jeffrey Epstein’s lenient treatment while incarcerated were the subjects of ongoing controversy, with the Miami Herald saying in 2018 that Alexander Acosta gave Epstein “the deal of a lifetime”.

Alexander Acosta Resigns

On Friday, 12, July 2019, Alexander said that he will resign. He is resigning amid controversy over the way he handled a sex crimes case against wealthy businessman Jeffrey Epstein a decade ago when he was U.S. attorney for southern Florida.

He made the announcement to reporters while standing next to President Donald Trump outside the White House. Trump said Alexander had called him Friday morning and that it was his decision to quit.

“This was him, not me, because I’m with him,” Donald Trump said in a lengthy exchange with the press before departing the White House en route to events in Wisconsin and Ohio. “I said, ‘You don’t have to do this.’”

His resignation letter to President Trump, read in part, “It has meant so much to me that you have offered your steadfast support in our private discussions and in your public remarks.” But “your agenda, putting the American people first, must avoid any distractions.”

Below is his resignation letter;

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Alexander Acosta News

Congressional Democrats are trying to increase pressure on Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta over his handling of a secret plea deal with a wealthy financier accused of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls.

A group of House Democrats sent a letter to the attorney general on Friday asking the Justice Department to reopen the deal with Jeffrey Epstein to allow further investigation. They also want the department to make public the results of a department review into federal prosecutors’ management of the case, which happened when Acosta served as U.S. Attorney in Miami.

“It is at this critical juncture that the agency has an opportunity to foster greater transparency and accountability with the American public,” says the letter, which was led by Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Lois Frankel of Florida and Jackie Speier of California, and signed by other Democrats.

The fresh push from Democrats underscored their efforts to keep the heat on the official whom President Trump has chosen to oversee labor issues. But so far the White House has not signaled great urgency in reviewing the case or in changing Acosta’s standing.

The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility is examining whether professional misconduct took place in the case. The department declined to comment on the letter.

Epstein, now 66, reached a non-prosecution deal in 2008 with Acosta’s former office to secretly end a federal sex abuse investigation involving at least 40 teenage girls that could have landed him behind bars for life. He instead pleaded guilty to state charges, spent 13 months in jail, paid settlements to victims and is a registered sex offender.

A federal judge has ruled that prosecutors in Florida violated the rights of victims by reaching the non-prosecution agreement with Epstein. In that decision, the judge stopped short of invalidating the non-prosecution agreement but asked prosecutors and victims’ lawyers to recommend how to move forward. The victims have called for the deal to be put aside and want prosecutors to charge Epstein federally, but it is unclear when or if that would happen.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said last week that the administration was “looking into the case,” but it has not provided any additional information.

But others have expressed support for Acosta. In a statement, Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, said of the case: “This was a prosecutorial judgment that was made by Secretary Acosta and was vetted by our committee. The Justice Department under the last three presidents – Trump, Obama, and Bush – have all defended his handling of the case.”

Mr. Trump himself praised Acosta’s work last week.

“I really don’t know too much about it,” Mr. Trump told reporters last week. “I know he’s done a great job as labor secretary, and that seems like a long time ago, but I know he’s been a fantastic labor secretary. That’s all I can really tell you about it. That’s all I know about it.”

A senior Republican aide dismissed the calls for Acosta to step aside. During the confirmation process, Acosta privately stressed that he felt he had gotten the best deal he could, given the evidence at hand and the resources he was up against.

Acosta, who was confirmed by the Senate in a 60-38 vote in 2017, is the nation’s 27th labor secretary, leading a sprawling agency that enforces more than 180 federal laws covering about 10 million employers and 125 million workers. In addition to working as a federal prosecutor, he has been a civil rights chief at the Justice Department and a member of the National Labor Relations Board.

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